This invention relates to apparatus and method for storing data and visual information in orderly concise fashion so that it can be easily located and rapidly recalled in totallity with the assurance that none of the data has been over-looked or is missing by a user of this system with a minimum of searching time expended.
Two systems currently well known in the state of the art presently exist for storing various forms of data. These systems are computers for storing various documentation and records, such as accounts payable, bills due, manuscript, tests, etc.; and video tape recorder systems for storing various forms of events or happenings such as movies, conferences, sporting events, operations, teachings instructions, etc.
It is the purpose of this invention to combine the features of these two conventional systems and interconnect them in such a manner that data readily storable in one type of system can be coordinated with related data readibly storable in the other type of system. The design of the system is such that it automatically coordinates data stored on video tape cartridge with related data stored on comuter floppy disk (also referred to as diskette).
Heretofore information stored on video tapes required that a log or catalogue be kept in order to find a specific video tape, or if the collection was quite large a computer cataloging of them could be kept. Any documentation related to the tapes could also be kept track of in a computer, if properly entered. The problem of coordinating or correlating documentation with video tapes seems rather trivial except when one realizes that in some instances there can be many pages of documentation for each single frame of video tape or in other situations there can be many hundreds or even thousands of frames of video tape for one page or less of documentation on a floppy disk.
An example of the former might be in a court trial where an expert witness might give many pages of testimony about a single photograph (one frame on the video tape), and an example of the latter might be where there is only a brief description of a medical procedure being performed in an operating room.
In either case the system would allow the user to automatically determine instantly which floppy disk data has related information recorded on some particular video tape or viceversa, that is, which video tape cartridge data has some related information recorded on some floppy disk.
The problem of locating related data between video tape cartridges and floppy disks is further compounded when it is realized that because these recording medium have the capability of storing huge amounts of information there may be hundreds or even thousands of unrelated events or information stored on a single floppy disk, or a single video cartridge, and to make matters worse the information need not be in the same specific order.
Heretofore neither computers or a video tape recording system has had the capability of automatically keeping track of where related data is located in a counter part system as well as in its self, at the same time. It is this capability which distinguishes this system from all previous systems.